In a wireless communication system, such as a long term evolution (LTE) communication system, services are provided to a subscriber on radio bearers. Radio bearers are channels that carry audio, video, data, and/or control signaling between a network node, such as a mobile management entity (MME), and a base station or between a base station and a wireless device, e.g., user equipment (UE), of a subscriber. For example, voice packets of a voice-only service between a landline caller and a wireless subscriber are carried by an uplink bearer carrying voice packets and overhead from the wireless device of the wireless subscriber to the base station, and a downlink bearer carrying voice packets and overhead from the base station to the wireless device. Also, a transport bearer carries voice and overhead from the base station to a network node that is connected to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or backhaul network, and another transport bearer carries voice and overhead from the network node to the base station.
The base station and network nodes currently use the bearer as the level of granularity to manage connections. For example, Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) Technical Specification (TS) 36.413 version 12.3.0 defines procedures to create and modify a bearer in which some services, such as video and voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) or voice over LTE (VoLTE) require at least two bearers in each direction, one for carrying voice and one for call signaling. For such services, a first downlink bearer carries voice from the serving base station to the wireless device and a second downlink bearer carries signaling from the serving base station to the wireless device. Similarly, a first uplink bearer carries voice from the wireless device to the serving base station and a second uplink bearer carries signaling from the wireless device to the serving base station. Further, four transport bearers carry voice and signaling between the base station and the network node.
Since 3GPP TS 36.413 v 12.3.0 defines only admission control at the bearer level, it takes several requests to create or modify all bearers associated with a service. It also takes several admission control passes to admit such a multi-bearer service. This means that if a bearer associated with a service fails, the remaining bearers associated with the service continue to be reserved for the failed service, thereby unnecessarily tying up resources. For example, a service may be partially admitted, i.e., some bearers associated with the service have been admitted, but the rest of the bearers fail to gain admittance. The same is true for service modification and deletion where a service may be partially modified or partially deleted as only some bearers are successfully modified or deleted while the other bearers failed to be modified or deleted, thereby negatively affecting resource usage of the system. These partially admitted/modified/deleted services disadvantageously result in a service that does not work and unnecessarily ties up resources, e.g., bearers, that would otherwise be used for another service.